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project // embroidered hexagon necklace

I love having embroidery around all over the place, but I rarely embroider on clothes. Maybe I'm bad at commitment, but I worry that I'll be too locked in with that. I'd much rather wear embroidery by making jewelry and other accessories. There's much more flexibility with that!

This simple project combines my love of embroidery, small cuteness, and a little bit of English paper piecing. You'll need to know how to baste a hexagon, but that's it. I'll get into more details of working with embroidered hexagons soon, but I just couldn't wait to show off this little necklace!

Today's free Hexagon Tinies pattern is this little jam jar. I'm a little smitten with it! Susi has been sewing things with jam on them, and so this design is thanks to her.

For these patterns, I'm putting them up as JPG files so that you can resize them if you want/need to, and so that you could print out more than one at a time (which is tricky with PDFs). Just save the file then open them in an image editing software or even place them in MS Word.

You will need:

Two 1-inch hexies: one plain, one embroidered
One yard of thin ribbon
Needle and thread
Embroidery floss

Make sure that the ribbon isn't twisted, then stitch the two ends together. Using a full yard of ribbon makes this a long necklace that fits easily over your head without needing jewelry hardware. However, you can adjust the length to suit you.

Finger press (or iron!) your hexagons, then remove the papers. Place the stitched ends of the ribbon in the middle of one of the hexagons so that the necklace part is evenly positioned at the top.

I like having the hexagon pointed up, but you can rotate this to have a flat edge up if that works better for your embroidered hexagon.

Hold the two hexagons wrong sides together (again, make sure your embroidery is rotated correctly!), then running stitch around the edges with 2-3 strands of embroidery floss, hiding the knots between the layers. Try to get two stitches through each piece of ribbon, but at a minimum, one stitch through each ribbon.

I found that Wonder Clips are SUPER helpful here. If you haven't gotten any of these little clips yet, look for a sale, use a JoAnn coupon...just get some. (Oh, how I wish I had gotten this set...I could use another 50 of them, right?) Let's get back to work...

Oh wait...that was the last step! Except, you may want to give it a little pressing with an iron. I find that it makes quite a difference in giving it a finished look.

This is a really quick project, with the embroidery on the hexagon taking the longest. And with a small pattern like this, that doesn't take very long at all. Still, you could easily skip the embroidery and use this for fussy cut hexagons or simply to show off your favorite fabric.

With all of the free Hexagon Tinies coming out this month, you could have a whole new collection of embroidered jewelry! Not to mention, pretty much any of the Teeny Tinies would work on a necklace like this. You could even get a jump on Christmas gifts!

Yay!! I did it, thanks to you! I was able to save the first two Tinies on my desktop, drag them to my Google Drive, and then open up a new G Doc, where I adjusted the size. 2" was a little small when printed, so I dragged the bottom right corner up to 2.25" and they printed out with perfect 2" squares :) I'm so psyched to learn an easier way to gather it all together!(@agalinsweden on IG)

I love this project!! I made my first EPP hexagons today!! It was so easy, way easier than I thought it would be, and I love the cute little hexagon results. Anyways, that wasn't the point, I have a question about the stitch love book.

I am getting ready to make the ladybug luggage tag and was wondering about the embroidery motif size. I have enlarged the felt pattern pieces 155% as directed but do you enlarge the embroidery motif at all? When I compare them it looks a little small but you don't have any instructions for enlarging it so I wasn't sure. I thought the best thing to do would be to just ask.

Also, I adore hexagons so I was wondering if there would be a way to make the triangle mug rug with hexies replacing the triangles. I'm thinking it would probably be easier to just use the triangles but again thought I should ask.

You can definitely replace the triangles with hexagons. If you use 1-inch hexagons, you won't even need as many pieces, and it will come together faster.

For the luggage tag, I think there was an error with the sizing. I'm so sorry! I went to my original files and the luggage tag and did some measuring. You'll want to enlarge the pattern 125%. I think that will be better than changing the tag size.

Thank you!! I may end up sticking with the triangles, I was slightly concerned that it might be more difficult making triangles than hexagons, plus the hexagons are so fun to make!! But then again I like the geometry of the triangles. We will just see how a go as I get closer to the trip.

Thank you so much for the help on the ladybug leaf bag tag, I have been working on it and it is looking gorgeous. Thank you for all your adorable ideas!! :)

One other thing, the embroidered hexagon necklace is so sweet. I can completely see how perfect it would be for the kids. I may just have to make some and take them just in case. I am planning on using some spring seasonal stitching club patterns for it. :) Thank you so much for the genius idea of taking simple braided bracelets! My friends are busily making a ton (100+) and they will be absolutely perfect, and they won't take up a lot of room in my limited space bags!

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unless otherwise noted, all content is copyright 2004-2018 mollie johanson, and should be kept for personal and cottage-industry use only. if you have questions or would like to publish any of my work, please ask first.